


faithful friends who are dear to us

by aces



Category: due South
Genre: Christmas, Family, M/M, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-01
Updated: 2011-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-14 07:28:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/146860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aces/pseuds/aces
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray loves his family.  Even at the holidays.</p>
            </blockquote>





	faithful friends who are dear to us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jenavira](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenavira/gifts).



_24 December 1970.  
Tracking Jackson Templeton and a party of four, a family visiting their relatives for the holidays. He crashed his plane 50 miles N of here, last radio signal three hours ago. I hope to find them tomorrow, though it means missing another Christmas with Caroline and Benton._

*

“It’s the same thing every year with my family,” Ray grumbled from his desk at the precinct, pushing his chair back on its back two legs and propping his feet up on his desk. “Tony and my uncles get drunk, Maria and Francesca start yelling, at least one of my nieces and/or nephews puke all over me, and ma sits there praying for her family’s souls the whole time.”

“Hey, man, at least your family _has_ Christmas,” said Huey. “Louie’s family won’t even give each other the time of day.”

“Shut up, man,” Gardino protested, “what business is it of yours anyway?”

“Fraser,” Ray called as Fraser entered the room. Fraser waved his hat by way of saying hello and strode over to join Ray at his desk. “What are your Christmas plans? Heading back to Canada?”

“Christmas?” Fraser blinked. “Oh yes. I don’t have any plans this year, actually.”

“What?” Ray dropped his chair so all four legs rested on the floor. “What? No plans for Christmas, when we actually theoretically have the day off for once?” He was staring at his partner as if the Canadian had grown antlers. “That is unacceptable, Fraser. Un-acc-eptable.”

“I’m sorry, Ray,” Fraser said, “but as I have no living family, I don’t—”

“Nope.” Ray raised his hands. “Nope, sorry, Benny, I won’t hear it. You have plans now.”

“I do?”

“Yep.” Ray Vecchio looked a tiny bit relieved. “You’re coming to my house.”

*

“Benton!” Mrs. Vecchio threw her arms open and grinned widely when Ray ushered his friend into the Vecchio home, Diefenbaker prancing around all their legs in his excitement; he always knew there would be a good feast at the Vecchio household. “I am so glad you could make it, dear.” She gave the Mountie a hug, and he stood still for her, politely waiting until she disengaged. “Give me your coat, dear, and go make yourself at home.”

“What the hell are you wearing?” Ray asked when Fraser handed his coat over to Mrs. Vecchio, who bustled off to the coat closet.

“I, uh, didn’t know how formal your holiday gatherings were,” Fraser smoothed down his navy suit jacket in a manner that might have been considered nervous, were he anyone other than Benton Fraser. His trousers matched the blazer, and his tie was a tastefully festive maroon. “If this is too formal, I can go home and change—”

“Oh no,” Ray dragged Fraser out of the hallway into the living room, “you don’t get to escape that easily, not if I don’t. C’mon, I’ll fix you a drink.”

“Really, Ray, that’s not necessary—”

The living room was full of men, most of them yelling at the game on the tv. Two or three little boys were running around, yelling mostly for the pure joy of yelling, so far as Fraser could discern. There was a Christmas tree off to one side, the lights still turned on; the remains of wrapping paper and plastic packaging had not quite all been tidied up, despite Mrs. Vecchio's best efforts. Ray poured two glasses of cheap scotch from the little bar set in another corner of the room and handed one to Fraser. “Hey!” Tony yelled from the couch, “outta the way, Ray!”

“Like anything was happening, stupid, it’s a commercial!” Ray rolled his eyes, even as Fraser removed himself to the side of the room furthest from the television set. Ray took a gulp of scotch. “Fraser, have I ever given you the grand tour?”

“Well, in a way, yes; I have visited your home on more than one occasion, Ray. I particularly remember the bathroom.”

“Oh yeah.” Ray shuddered a little at the memory of horse meat and parasites. “C’mon, you can have the dime version again anyway.”

“Dining room, you remember,” he said as they walked through. Two little girls were giggling as they set the table; they giggled harder when Fraser smiled at them. “Kitchen, I think you’ve seen before,” he went on as they broke into what appeared to be a melee, or possibly an all out food war.

“Ray! Get the hell outta the way!” Maria yelled from over the stove, stirring two saucepans at once.

“Oh, hi, Fraser,” Francesca smiled demurely from over the salad bowl as she chopped carrots.

“Fraser!” Mrs. Vecchio sailed up to him, holding out a spoon. “What do you think of this minestrone? Not enough salt?”

Fraser obligingly tasted the soup. “Not enough _pepper_ ,” he said after considering for a moment.

“Ah-ha!” The older woman turned to her daughters. “I _told_ you!”

“Ma,” Francesca rolled her eyes, “you _never_ think there’s enough pepper.”

“Benton agrees with me!”

“Well,” her daughter said, eyeing Fraser’s suit with a particular gleam in her eye that always made her brother glare a lot and Fraser uncomfortably want to loosen his collar, “he does have good taste…”

“C’mon,” Ray said, turning Fraser around and pushing him back out of the kitchen. He headed up the stairs. “Let’s keep this party bus moving.”

The family sat down to dinner a half-hour later. Mrs. Vecchio made one of the uncles say grace when Ray refused to do it; great-aunt Louisa couldn’t hear, so he had to yell out the prayer. Tony and Maria began bickering again, Diefenbaker tried to steal the ham from the table—for which Fraser profusely apologized, and Francesca told him it made a nice change to have the only actual animal in the room behave with any honesty—two siblings from the youngest generation came very close to starting their own food fight but were prevented by Ray, cousin Bobby had had a few too many rum balls and started singing rude songs, and Aunt Vicky started cursing everyone in Italian with a systematic thoroughness that shocked Fraser but which everyone else took in stride. Mrs. Vecchio ensured lots of food remained on the table, tried to break up as many fights as she could, and occasionally crossed herself and asked the Virgin Mary for patience. Fraser watched Ray get more and more tense until the dessert—chocolate cake with homemade frosting—rolled out and he could make good his escape.

Fraser saw him leave but could not immediately follow, due to being entangled in a conversation about the game that had just been on; Tony and cousin Bobby were arguing over how exactly a play had gone down and were _relying_ on Fraser to recall the moves accurately. Once he extricated himself from that corner, Francesca found him, and he made the mistake of complimenting her red dress—“very festive,” was all he said, but that was enough for Francesca—and then Uncle Mario wanted to have a chat with him about the RCMP, and finally Mrs. Vecchio pulled him into the kitchen to help her make coffee, her ulterior motive apparently being to grill him about how he liked living in Chicago as she never had the opportunity to talk to him and why didn't he come round for dinner more often with her son?

Finally, finally, Fraser managed to efface himself. Some of the family had retreated again to the living room, some remained in the dining room, some were starting to clean up in the kitchen, a more evenly distributed mix of the sexes this time. Diefenbaker had made himself a hit with the children, who were running around screaming while they chased him and he barked a lot. It was messy, and loud, and vibrantly alive, and there was absolutely no sign of Ray anywhere downstairs.

Fraser went upstairs and found Ray’s room. “Ray?” he called softly, knocking on the opened door. There was no sign of his friend in the room. He was about to turn and go back downstairs when he heard Ray’s voice.

“Out here, Fraser.”

One of the windows was open. Fraser frowned—even he, used to the Northwest Territories, found it a chilly evening without all his layers on—but stepped up to the window. Ray’s room faced the front of the house, overlooking the porch. Ray was sitting on the porch roof.

Fraser climbed out and sat down next to him. “I used to come out here all the time when I was a kid,” Ray said. His breath froze on the air. “I shared the room with my brother; it’s a big house, but we’ve always had a lot of family living here. When I was older, I sneaked out this way, though I know dad knew about it. Maybe even ma,” he added reflectively. He was sitting with his knees drawn up to himself, shivering. He wasn’t wearing his coat. Then again, neither was Fraser.

“It was quiet, out here,” Ray went on, as if Fraser had asked him a question. “Some nights, I could even see the stars.” He closed his eyes, then, and breathed. Fraser looked around the neighborhood. Lots of houses were decorated for the holidays, white and red and green lights, plastic reindeer and Santa Clauses in the yards. It was quiet, no cars on the street, no pedestrians on the sidewalk. There was still snow on the ground, though a lot of it had been churned up throughout the day. It was hard to see that in the dark, though; the world looked new, pristine.

“Don’t get me wrong, Fraser, I love my family. But sometimes they’re too much, y’know? I could breathe out here,” Ray said, and Fraser shut his eyes and thought of mountains and forests and snow under the moon, so reflective it was more like dusk than true night. “It was _quiet_.”

“I’m used to the quiet,” Fraser said after a moment. He opened his eyes, turned his head to look at his friend. “The utter silence of a windless day. Some days, the only words my grandparents and I said to each other were ‘Good morning,’ ‘pass the butter,’ ‘have you read this book yet?’, ‘good night.’” He bumped shoulders with Ray, companionably. “I admit, I don’t quite know what to do with all the noise and fuss your family makes, but I—I rather like it, Ray.”

Ray turned his face away from his friend, laughed a little, nodded once to himself. “Of course you do, Fraser,” he said. “Of course you do.” His shivering was decidedly more pronounced; his teeth chattered as he spoke. Fraser stood up.

“It’s cold out here, Ray,” he said and held out his hand. Ray looked at it, looked up at his face, then took the hand.

They climbed back into the bedroom, and Ray turned to close the window. “Ma will kill me if the heating bill goes too high again this month,” he said. The room was dark, the lights off, a little bit of light spilling in from the hallway and the downstairs, where they could both hear the family laughing, shouting, watching tv, jumping up and down, laughing some more.

“Thank you, Ray,” Fraser said, while his friend’s back was turned. “For inviting me, I mean, for Christmas dinner. It means a lot to me.”

Ray turned back to him. “Benny—” he said, but he stopped there, a most peculiar look on his face, as if some very strong emotions had gotten tangled in his head and he was trying to unravel them. Fraser took a step closer, instinctively, ready to help his partner however he could.

“Yes, Ray?”

Ray shook his head slowly, but it wasn’t a negation. “You,” he said. “You do this _thing_ , where you—you just, you talk, or you’re just _there_ , and the world changes around you—” He put his hands on Fraser’s chest, flat, pressing them against the fabric of Fraser’s suit. “Dammit, how do you _do_ that?”

Fraser blinked. He opened his mouth, hesitated; no sound came out. And then he smiled, just a little. “By having faith, Ray,” he said.

Ray stared at him, and then he laughed, and let his forehead fall gently against Fraser’s. He stood there for a moment, eyes closed and breathing, and Fraser thought about the silence of the north. He felt Ray’s tension relax, at last, and put a hand on Ray’s arm to help support him. And then Ray stood back and headed for the hallway and the stairs.

“Merry Christmas, Benny,” he said, just as he reached the doorway.

“Merry Christmas, Ray,” Fraser said with a smile.


End file.
